to see the dangers that would arise if married persons
were excluded from holy orders.[1] The historian
has preserved a remarkable record (if to some extent
imaginary, hardly less valuable as expressing opinions
current in Milan not long after the event took place) of
a disputation they held with their opponents on the
subject.
One declared that to deprive a priest of his wife meant simply to multiply his mistresses : vetando unam et propriam uxorem, centum fornicatrices ac adulteria multa concedis. Another, the archdeacon Wibert, recited the praises of married virtue from the Bible and from saint Ambrose, and boldly declared that whatever was lawful to a layman was lawful also to a clergyman ; for all are priests, whosoever be sons of the church, be they laymen or clerks. They invoked the freedom of the apostolic age, and charged the upholders of celibacy with the taint of those of Montforte, a castle not far from Asti which afforded shelter to a sect whose heresy was a matter of common notoriety at the time.[2] The Milanese had chosen a telling argument. The reproach was so far a just one that the party of Peter Damiani and of Hilde- braild, and these despised sectaries were in this regard equally fallen from the primitive humanity of their religion .
The fortunes of the western Paulicians need not detain us long. There was no principle of development in their creed; it reflected no genuine freedom of thought. It
- ↑ This was the only point at issue : it was admitted that no one could marry after ordination : cf . Landulf, Hist. Mediolan, iii. 20, Pertz 8. 94; 1848. Gerbert s pro- fession at Rheims, Nuptias non prohibeo, secunda matrimonia non damno, Mansi 19. 108 A, was only the extravagant pledge of a politi- cal aspirant : cf . Gfrorer 3. 1462.
- ↑ Forsitan adhuc ilia sententia implicitus ea qua olim illi de Mon- teforti te imbuerant ; qui omnem Christianitatem mulierem non tan- gere et genus humanum sine semino virili, apum more, nasci dicentes, falsis sententiis affirma- bant : Landulf iii. 26 p. 93. Mil- man has related this singular debate at some length : vol. 3. 470 n. 2. On the Milanese usage with respect to marriage, compare Anselm the Peripatetic s language : ’Nobis enirn clericis quibus licet liceat; in uxoribus et filiis libera est potestas. Usus quidem pre- stat, ipsa defendit auctoritas : Rhetorimach. ii. p. 45.
